Lucy Lawless (Xena the Warrior Princess, currently starring in My Life Is Murder) joins Mark Linsenmayer, Erica Spyres, and Brian Hirt to think about the true crime genre, of both the documentary and dramatized variety. What’s the appeal? Why do women in particular gravitate to it?

The third damned soul in our one-room hell was played by a delightfully shrieky Jaime Murray, friend and Spartacus co-star of Lucy's. You likely know Jaime for her role as Lila, the psychotic main guest star in Season 2 of Dexter, and right now she appears in the sci-fi shows Defiance and Warehouse 13.

The play is about three dead people stuck in a room together, any two of which would probably reach some equilibrium. But, as a threesome, they enter into a toxic dynamic where none can get what he or she needs out of the others.

The recording was made in support of the Partially Examined Life episode discussing Sartre, covering this play as well as his essays "Existentialism is a Humanism" (1946), and "Bad Faith," (which constitutes part 1, chapter 2 of Being & Nothingness, 1943). These convey the essence of Sartre's existentialism and give a picture of his view of man's radical freedom (we're condemned to be free!) and what for him serves as some semblance of an ethics.

"I went to the UN summit on sustainable development after getting involved in the whole... big oil protest... and I saw all of these people working very hard but seemingly at cross-purposes about how do we create a just society." On a full two-hour episode of The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast (which she claims was largely responsible for turning her on to philosophy), she describes how this political interest drove her to look at the foundations and histories of theories of justice, and eventually decide to go back to school to study philosophy, which she's now doing in New Zealand between flights to the states to film TV spots such as her recent appearance on NBC's Parks and Recreation.

The thesis of the book is that celebrities serve as an outlet for society's aggressive instincts. Drawing on canonical texts about religious anthropology like James Frazer's The Golden Bough, the author compares the treatment of modern celebrities to ancient rites where young maidens were lavishly bestowed with fineries and then sacrified. Lucy thinks this well matches her own experiences, and talks about the existential weirdness involved with being and dealing with the famous.

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